Source: JUST IN: President speaks on currency | The Herald June 7, 2019
President Mnangagwa leads the national clean up campaign in Southlea Park today. Picture by Justin Mutenda Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Government has adopted policies that will result in the re-introduction of a local currency as it is the only way a country can develop, President Mnangagwa has said.President Mnangagwa said this while addressing Southlea Park residents in Harare after taking part in this month’s clean-up campaign at Candy Shopping Centre. He said the multi-currency regime had been adopted to deal with the hyper-inflation experienced between 2008 and 2009 but should not be maintained going into the future.
“Between 2008 and 2009 our country’s currency lost value and some people became billionaires or trillionaires due to high inflation,” President Mnangagwa said.
“At the time Government decided to adopt the multi-currency regime where we started using, the US dollar, Rand, the British Pound or Pula for transacting. It was a policy measure to address the challenges that were being faced then. We however, cannot not continue going forward without our own currency. South Africa has its own currency and when you go there with the US dollar or Euro you would have to convert it to the Rand before you can transact.
“The same applies to Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and the UK. A country cannot develop using other nations’ currency. A currency is only printed by its owners and the only way to get it is through exports, Diaspora remittances or foreign investments but as a country we should have our own currency and we have embarked on that journey (to have a local currency).
He added that when the local currency is re-introduced it would no longer be possible to use foreign currency while transacting locally
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COMMENTS
The President states that the multi-currency was introduced when the country was experiencing hyper-inflation. We not there yet but our inflation is galloping and he wants to introduce a domestic currency. It should be noted that the multi-currency was introduced by the GNU not by ZANU PF who failed to do so in the preceding years.
To draw comparisons with South Africa, Zambia, England is nonsensical; none of those countries have an economy in nose-dive nor do they have a currency shortage. had the ZANU PF government that came to power in 2013 maintained the economic and fiscal policies of the GNU we would not be in our current demise. The President talks of people who exploited the 2008/2009 situation and became billionaires. The same is happening today and the government should have little difficulty identifying the culprits. Sadly, the new dispensation, the anti-corruption speeches and just that – mere words with no intention of bringing to book the big fish.
I have travelled the world extensively for several decades and no government has been able to control the black market for currency exchange. If a government rigs their currency such as in Zimbabwe, the black market will always flourish. How moronic can ZANU PF be to think they are genius enough to control something that no other government has ever managed to do in human existence.